12:00, 13-Mar-96, WeH 7220
A Developmental Model for the Evolution of Complete Autonomous Agents
Frank Dellaert
Development is an important, powerful and integral element of
biological evolution. We will present two models of development that
can be used to evolve functional autonomous agents, complete with
bodies and neural control systems. The first and most complex model is
more biologically defensible in its details. It has been used to
hand-design a genome for the development of complete agents capable of
executing a simple avoidance task. These agents were then
incrementally improved through evolution. The second model is simpler
and uses a random Boolean network model for the genome and cell state
that is somewhat more removed from the biological realm, making it
easier to analyze and more amenable to evolution. Using this model, we
have successfully evolved complete agents from scratch that are
capable of following curved lines.
The submitted version of this paper is available via ftp off my home page:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dellaert/
ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/dellaert/ftp/SAB_96.ps.Z